Archive for the ‘sports’ Category
Andy Murray overcame world number one Rafael Nadal 6-4, 5-7, 6-3 in a thrilling final of the World Tennis Championship in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates on Saturday (January 3). The victorious Scot, who also beat Roger Federer in the newly-formed exhibition event, will now strive to defend his title in the season-opening ATP tournament in Doha, Qatar.
With the start of the new ATP season just days away, Andy Murray faced Rafael Nadal in the final of the inaugural World Tennis Championship on Saturday. The Spanish world number one held the upper hand in their previous encounters, having won the first five.
But Great Britain’s Murray came out on top for the first time in their most recent clash at the semi-final stage of the 2008 US Open. This match came to life in the third game as Murray broke serve with a thumping backhand after a thrilling long rally.
However, at 4-3 ahead, the 21-year-old wobbled on his own serve, and a double-fault allowed Nadal to level the match at four-all. Murray, though, immediately regained the momentum, snatching the next game with a brilliant short-angled backhand before holding his serve to claim the first set 6-4.
Nadal raised the intensity of his tennis at the start of the second set.But it was his opponent who managed the first break of serve after a marathon fifth game in which the Spaniard served an ace and a double-fault.
After four deuces, Nadal played a straightforward backhand long and it was 3-2 in Murray’s favour.Nadal’s challenge was far from over, however.The five-time Grand Slam winner battled his way from 40-15 down to take the very next game with a hooked forehand that Murray was unable to control.
The powerful groundstrokes continued but with Nadal leading 6-5, Murray was found wanting. He played into the net three times and Nadal broke his serve to level the match at one-set all. The third set was little short of epic, with a succession of incredible rallies.
The seventh game, in particular, brought the best out of both players as the excitement level in the crowd reached fever pitch. A huge stretch for a volley earned the world number four a break point at 30-40.
An amazing get kept Nadal in the game, but after a few more scintillating shots, Murray got the break when his rival missed wide with a backhand. The Briton could now sense victory and he duly completed it with another break in the ninth game.
Moments after being beaten by a fine running lob, Nadal played into the net and the title and US$ 250,000 winner’s prize was Murray’s. It will serve as the perfect preparation for the new ATP season which starts in Doha on Monday (January 5).
Murray is defending champion in Qatar, having lifted the crown twelve months ago before going on to win four more ATP titles in 2008.
Barcelona – Ramos
Posted on: December 13, 2008
New Real Madrid coach Juande Ramos insists his team can beat Barcelona at the Camp Nou to boost their ailing hopes of retaining the league title.
Ramos’s predecessor Bernd Schuster was sacked on Tuesday after stating Real were incapable of winning the match – but the Spaniard believes they can.
“We’re going to the Camp Nou to win,” said the ex-Tottenham coach on Friday.
“We’re capable of doing so, as has happened on other occasions. It’s going to a great, hard-fought game.”
Reigning Spanish champions Madrid sit fifth place in La Liga, nine points adrift of leaders and arch-rivals Barcelona.
Ramos replaced Schuster on a six-month contract to become Madrid’s eighth coach in less than six years.
The former Tottenham coach’s first league game is crucial as he bids to avoid a defeat that would leave his new club 12 points adrift.
Madrid have lost three of their past four league matches, while Barcelona have won 11 and drawn one of their past 12, during which they have scored 43 goals.
Arjen Robben was sent off in the closing stages of Sunday’s 4-3 home defeat by Sevilla and is suspended along with left-back Marcelo.
Robben says his team have not given up on winning a third straight league title despite their poor start.
“Not at all. I mean if we win on Saturday anything can happen,” said the Dutchman.
Since Madrid beat Barcelona 4-1 three days after winning its second straight league title, the Catalan team has been transformed by coach Pep Guardiola, who replaced Frank Rijkaard at the end of last season.
“A win would give us an important advantage over Madrid and a boost to help us make progress,” said Mexican defender Rafael Marquez.
“Hopefully it will be a great game and we can convince people that the 4-1 is forgotten. It’s something that I don’t like thinking back to and I understand people want revenge.”
And Guardiola predicts Madrid will adopt a new style on Saturday under Ramos, who was formerly in charge of Barcelona’s reserve team.
Armstrong, a seven-time Tour de France winner, is working the publicity machine by announcing his return to cycling’s premier event now.
Armstrong’s returning to competitive road racing after 3 1/2 years if he had skipped the race that brought him both fame and notoriety?
The latter is not good, even if the two words have mistakenly become interchangeable to most people. In Armstrong’s case, it refers to doping suspicions that have dogged him since his first of seven consecutive Tour victories in 1999, when he tested positive for a banned corticosteroid but was cleared by a therapeutic use exemption many feel was conveniently backdated.
But Armstrong needs the Tour de France, and he told the Associated Press the race needs him.The race certainly needs something after years of doping scandals. It always will remain a part of French culture, but its competitive legitimacy has been severely compromised — not the least by revelations that ex post facto testing (with no punitive consequences) found Armstrong had used the banned blood booster EPO in his 1999 victory.
Armstrong maintains he is coming back to get more publicity for his fight against cancer, a fight to which his commitment is unquestionable and laudable.And he knows few would pay much attention to what happens in the other events on his 2009 schedule, things like the Tour Down Under, the Tour of California and the Tour of Italy.
The Tour de France became water cooler discussion the last few years Armstrong rode — and it will again next summer, especially with the expected headline-making controversy over whether he or Alberto Contador, reigning Tour of Italy and Tour of Spain champion, will be the Astana team leader in France.
Armstrong never has competed in the Tour of Italy.At nearly 38 years old, he plans to ride the sport’s two toughest stage races.Not since 1998 has one person won both: Italy’s Marco Pantani.
His 1998 Tour de France triumph was a footnote to the Festina affair, when an arrest of a performance-enhancing drug mule made it clear elite cycling was riddled with doping.
Tim Montgomery
Posted on: November 24, 2008
Former track star Tim Montgomery said he took testosterone and human growth hormone before the Sydney Olympics, where he won a gold medal on the U.S. 400-meter relay team.
“I have a gold medal that I’m sitting on that I didn’t get with my own ability,”. “I’m not here to take away from anybody else’s accomplishments, only my own. And I must say, I apologize to the other people that were on the relay team if that was to happen.”
“If Tim Montgomery cheated at the games, then he should step forward and voluntarily return his medal, just as others from the 2000 team have done,” Darryl Seibel, spokesman for the U.S. Olympic Committee, said.
The U.S. men’s team that won the 1,600 relay in Sydney had to give up its medals after Antonio Pettigrew admitted doping.
The International Olympic Committee also vacated the victory by the U.S. women’s 1,600 relay team in Sydney and the third-place finish of the 400 relay squad because Marion Jones, Montgomery’s former girlfriend, had doped.
Montgomery also said that he signed a $98,000 shoe contract with Asics while still in college, a violation of NCAA rules.
Montgomery is serving a 46-month prison sentence for check fraud involving $1.7 million and then must serve five years for selling heroin to an informant.
Bela Karolyi
Posted on: November 14, 2008
Bela Karolyi promotes Chicago for the 2016 Olympics, tells of upcoming stars and rips into rules that make routines, well, routine.
Bela Karolyi blew into Chicago on Thursday, bringing his usual over-the-top enthusiasm, so infectious everyone gets his message even if the gymnastics coach who fled Romania 27 years ago still speaks so breathlessly and with such a heavy accent his words need to be translated from English to English.
Who better than Bela to hype both the first major gymnastics competition in the Chicago area since 1983 — the American Cup, next Feb. 21 at the Sears Centre — and the Chicago 2016 Olympic bid.
“I have a message for Rio,” Karolyi said, breaking into a shimmy. “You do what you do best, which is. . .CARNAVAL! And you let us do what we do best, which is organize things.”
Before Bela went onstage, he sat down for a few reflections on the past, present and future of U.S. women’s gymnastics, a future being plotted during a national team training camp taking place this week at the Karolyi Ranch outside Houston.
In 2004, we came back so proud (with a team silver and all-around champion), just like this time. Two weeks later, we had the national team camp, and all unknown little faces, hiding behind each other, and young coaches, they were so intimidated with the responsibility. Marta (his wife, the national team coordinator) came to me and said, “There’s something wrong. It’s like somebody died in here.” I told them what had just happened was over, you are the ones now, the one who can turn the sunshine on yourself. Get in, step up and take advantage of it.
Now is the same situation. But remember, in 2004, we lost all the team. Now we hope to have at least three continue. (All-around champion Nastia Liukin, all-around silver medalist Shawn Johnson and Samantha Peszek.) Nastia came to the team camp this week and told the girls the same thing she heard from me: “Your turn is now. Work hard and you can have the same satisfaction.”
You should see the little Jordyn Wieber (13, of Dewitt, Mich.). You would not believe it. What tumbling. What stability on the beam; she is glued on the thing. She’s a diamond. And Rebecca Bross (15, from the same Texas club as Liukin). But I hate to go through names because in 2004 I was hesitant to even mention Shawn Johnson even though she was just like the little Wieber kid.
In order to be a coordinator, you have to step out from direct coaching. In my mind, Kim Zmeskal (the first U.S. woman to win a world all-around title) would be a first-class leader. She is smart, calm, has the necessary diplomacy and technical knowledge. But she is very much involved in coaching now with a great kid (Chelsea Davis).
It is still ’84 (when he coached Mary Lou Retton to the all-around gold.) It is hard for anybody to understand where we came from and what kind of misery I had to endure until at least getting back in the gym. And then all the blame: The Karolyis are crazy, they don’t know anything about American kids, it’s not like under Communism, they will only do what they want to do, not what needs to be done. When you hear the same crap every day, it is very frustrating.
Finally, with this ’84 victory of Mary Lou, who was totally out-of-type (physically) for a gymnast — the all-around American kid, solid, muscle-filled, with a big smile and a big attitude — that was kind of retaliation.
Absolutely not. This is a sport where the young ones have a great opportunity to be great at 14, 15, 16, and older athletes can have their place, be great performers. The combination makes the sport good. It is a crime to eliminate the younger generation. And by doing it you leave the opportunity for all this cheating and all this controversy.
The problem is this stupid code of points (scoring system), which has them all doing like robots the same crap. Kill it. Let them loose. Let the older athletes have a chance to mesmerize you, make you feel like you are at the theater.
It’s the same. You see the gymnastics floor routines, and you want to cry. The same tumbling passes, the desperate try to somehow add up points, no smiles, blank faces, so much concentration, so much stress. Same thing on vault, bar, beam. Same routines, on and on and on. The only difference is who falls.
I watched a figure skating competition a few months ago, it was a very nice competition, and I watched three routines, and that was all I needed. I didn’t have to watch any more because I was going to see the same thing for seven more people. That is how you kill your sport.
Pitching matchups: LHP Cliff Lee (21-2, 2.28 ERA) vs. RHP Gil Meche (11-10, 3.96) tonight at 7:05; RHP Fausto Carmona (8-6, 4.88) vs. RHP Zack Greinke (10-10, 3.70) at 1:05 p.m. Saturday; RHP Bryan Bullington (first 2008 start) vs. undecided 7:05 p.m. Saturday; LHP Jeremy Sowers (3-8, 5.60) vs. RHP Brian Bannister (7-15, 5.81) at 1:05 p.m. Sunday.
Season series: The Indians lead this season, 9-5, and overall, 262-253.
Indians update: They’re hitting only .246 against Kansas City, but have outhomered them, 20-6, and outscored them, 76-46. Lee is 4-0 and Grady Sizemore is hitting .305 (18-for-59) with seven homers and 18 RBI against the Royals this year.
Royals update: They beat the Twins on Thursday to snap a three-game losing streak. Meche is 2-1 and David DeJesus is hitting .333 (19-for-57) with two homers and nine RBI against the Tribe this year.
Injuries: Indians — RHPs Jake Westbrook (right elbow) and Scott Elarton (non-baseball medical condition) are on the disabled list. RHP Anthony Reyes (right elbow) is day to day. Royals — RHPs Ryan Braun (right elbow), Luke Hochevar (right ribcage) and Carlos Rosa (right elbow), OFs Mitch Maier (right cheekbone fracture) and Shane Costa (right wrist), 2B Mark Grudzielanek (right ankle), 3B Alex Gordon (right hip flexor) and INF Angel Sanchez (left middle finger) are on the DL.
“I’m doing well, man,” the 7-footer said during a news conference at the Lakers’ practice facility. “The knee’s good. Everything’s ready to go, 100 percent. I’ve been training, getting stronger.”
The 20-year-old Bynum was expected to be sidelined 8 to 12 weeks after bruising a bone in his knee and briefly dislocating of his kneecap in the third quarter of a 100-99 victory over Memphis last Jan. 13. Instead, he was sidelined for the rest of the season, and underwent arthroscopic surgery May 21 to remove some cartilage debris and smooth some rough spots on the underside of his kneecap.
He was in the midst of a breakout season when injured, averaging 13.1 points and 10.1 rebounds.
Bynum recently returned to Southern California after spending a month working out with his personal trainer, Sean Zarzana, and former NBA standout Gerald Wilkins in Atlanta.
Bynum, the 10th overall selection in the 2005 NBA draft, credited the rapid improvement he made last season to the hiring Zarzana in the wake of withering criticism from teammate Kobe Bryant after the Lakers’ first-round playoff ouster in 2007.
“Actually, I’m better,” Bynum said when asked to compared his fitness to last summer. “My times on the track are better and I’m able to lift more weights. I’m stronger. I weigh about the same, I’m 285 [pounds] with less body fat.”
Bynum said he looked forward to working with Lakers legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar again this season. Abdul-Jabbar, the leading scorer in NBA history, has served as a mentor to Bynum, who jumped from St. Joseph High School in Metuchen, N.J., to the pro ranks.
“I can’t wait, man,” Bynum said. “I think I’m the only guy who wants the season to start, like, tomorrow, you know what I mean? But I just can’t wait to play with the fellows.”
Bynum is eligible for a contract extension that could pay him up to $80 million for five seasons, but said he’s not thinking about anything but a successful return to the Lakers’ lineup.
“If I handle my business on the court, the business off the court will be handled,” he said.
Bynum also said he’s looking forward to teaming with Pau Gasol, who will move from center to power forward this season.
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